How Can These Things Be? A sermon on John 3:1-17

Preached at First Lutheran Church in St Peter, MN on Sunday, March 16.  Gospel Text: John 3:1-17

Grace, peace, and mercy are yours from the Triune God.  Amen.

In today’s episode of frequently misunderstood Bible passages, I present to you: the story of Nicodemus and the one conversation with Jesus that has done more to divide Christians against one another and all other people than almost any other verse in all of scripture.  Let’s open up this story a bit.

Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a group of Jewish men who were religious and political leaders in Jerusalem. Nicodemus would have been very familiar with all the ins and outs of what it meant to be Jewish, he would have been closely following what Jesus was up to in his ministry. It is not entirely clear as to why Nicodemus wishes to see Jesus, but he comes to see him in the darkness because as a member of the Jewish elite, it just wouldn’t do to be seen keeping company with this unkempt radical who just got done throwing the money changers out of the temple, upending tables, and shouting that the temple has been turned into a marketplace. Then Nicodemus does something bold: He confesses that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, and that he is filled with the presence of God because of the signs that he has performed.

But then Jesus answers a question that Nicodemus is not asking.  Jesus says, “no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above” (or as some translations have it, born again or born anew).  Nicodemus was not asking, “how can we be sure you who are you say that you are?”  So, it is actually Jesus who begins this confusing conversation.  Nicodemus asks a very logical and literal question, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter their mother’s womb again?”  Jesus counters with, “do not be astonished.  No one can enter heaven without being born of water and Spirit.”  Again, Nicodemus speaks for all of us who are still confused, “How can these things be?”  And Jesus is almost impatient with him, “How can you be a teacher of Israel and not understand these things?  We, presumably meaning Jesus and the disciples, tell you what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not believe.  How then can you believe about heavenly things?”  Then Jesus utters some of the most well known words in all of scripture, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” 

That is John 3:16.  It’s on t-shirts.  It’s on billboards  It’s on that guy’s sign who attends football games wearing a rainbow wig.  It has become shorthand for Christians to identify one another. It has become a way to identify who is in (that is, who believes the “right stuff”) and who is out.

John 3:16 is one of those Bible verses that we have heard so many times that we think that we know what it means.  And we as humans like this verse a lot, because we think that we hear a command for us to DO something to provide for our own salvation. You know, “whoever believes in him may not perish.”  We just have to believe and we will be saved, and that seems simple enough.   We don’t have to be like Nicodemus, who is cast as some kind of bumbling idiot, who just doesn’t get the most obvious thing that Jesus is trying to say to him. We grab onto the one word in this verse that allows us to get involved, believe, the verb where we are the subject. Yet, we miss so much of what is going on here. 

The real subject of this verse is God.  God Loved.  God Gave.   And we hear in John 3:17, which is what should REALLY be on billboards and t-shirts, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  God Saved.  We are not the ones doing the work here and it is not some exclusive club of saved people.  It is the whole world, no exceptions.  

What does it actually mean to be born again or born from above?  I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to be born.  Two of my dear friends back home in Denver had a baby girl on Ash Wednesday.  Little Willa Rose did absolutely nothing to bring about her own birth.  Just as all of us gathered here today did absolutely nothing to bring about our own birth.  Our mothers labored and brought us forth into the world out of love.  Being born again of water and the spirit means that God is laboring to bring us into new life out of pure love for us. 

We Christians like to think that we are not like Nicodemus, because we know the rest of the story.  We know that Jesus will be crucified and raised from the dead for the salvation of the whole world. But I think that we are more like Nicodemus in this particular story than we would like to admit.  As Lutherans, we do not have a theology that mandates that we make a personal decision to be “born again”, but as humans, we have an innate and overpowering drive to want to orchestrate our own lives. We do not necessarily make a decision to “choose Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior” and thus save ourselves from eternal suffering or some other such thing, but we do want to have a hand in controlling the outcome of our lives. We say that we understand that we are born again through water and the word, and that our baptisms mark our new life in Christ, but like Nicodemus, we still come to Jesus in the dark of night with questions that we cannot answer on our own.  “How can these things be?” 

The sort of questions we face when having faith becomes hard.  When we face illness or uncertainty.  Living with overwhelming grief or suffering.  When we beg God for a sign of how to move forward with an impossible decision and hear deafening silence instead.  We ask…“How can these things be?”   

I think our hope lies in the season of Lent.  In the season of Lent we are journeying towards Jerusalem with Jesus.  We are contemplating who God is as fully human and fully divine, as Christ crucified on the cross.  But we cannot talk about the promise of birth, without it being accompanied by the certainty of death one day as well.  We boldly confessed this fact on Ash Wednesday, as our foreheads were marked with ash.  But death does not have the final word. We have a God who loves us so much as to actually die for our sake, so that we might never be separated from God in death ever again. The season of Lent and the crucifixion show that God is never absent in our suffering, because God knows, on a physical, visceral, literal, level what it means to feel pain and to die.  I recognize this might sound kind of odd, that this is hopeful.  But bear with me.  In the holy work of pastoring, we pastors get the privilege of accompanying so many people through the last days of their lives.  We pray, we sit, we sing, but most of all, we proclaim that death on earth is not the end.  And in these holy places of dying, the thin places where the here and now meet the hereafter, the presence of God is palpable. That even in dying, there is a rebirth happening as well.  That is the Gospel.

Let us pray…God, thank you for birthing us into new life every single day.  We trust in the promise of new life and we trust that you bear with us even in death.  Amen.

2013 Year in Review

January 8, 2013 Move to MN

I used to be pretty good about sending a Christmas card, that did not happen this year.  The holiday season got a little out of hand.

So here is my answer to what happened in 2013

1. Move to Minnesota:
On January 7, 2013 I left Denver for a two-day trip to the Twin Cities.  This was to begin my Lutheran year classes at Luther Seminary.  I moved into campus housing and took a January intensive class.

It's awfully chilly in MN

2. New Tattoo in January 2013

One of the ways that I mark significant points in my life is with tattoos.  So, to celebrate my move to Minnesota and the final part of my seminary education, I got a new tattoo.  As a side note, this was the most painful tattoo yet out of the four that I have. Do not get a tattoo in this location unless you want to experience excruciating pain.














3. New friendships in Minnesota

I had the privilege of meeting a number of wonderful people in Minnesota: Jodi, Nate, Peter, Kae, Margaret, Eileen, Jon, Dan, Emmy, the list goes on and on.  As well as rekindling friendships with friends from Denver and Augustana College who lived in MN, Asher, Josh, Ingrid and Christy. Humble Walk Lutheran Church brought me immeasurable joy!

Me with my friend Margaret in the state capital.
Credit City Pages

4. Marriage Equality in Minnesota

Lutheran clergywonen at the state capital.
Credit brookerossphotography.com

Being present at the Minnesota state capital the day marriage equality happened…holy time. I talk more about the experience in this blog post, Love is the Law. I also talk about it in my Pentecost Sermon. Driving away from the capital building blasting "Love is the Law" by the Suburbs with the windows down after marriage equality was voted into law…probably hands down my favorite moment of the entire year.





5. Coming out…
Yeah, you heard that right. I am not straight, nor have I ever been.  This is the first time that I have announced this on this blog, although I've alluded to it. It's liberating.  It's also been really hard.

6. Turning 30

Birthday lunch at Pizzeria Lola with Nadia

In July I turned 30.  I got to have lunch at my favorite restaurant in Minneapolis, Pizzeria Lola, then listen to Nadia speak at a conference at Luther, then a dinner picnic at Minnehaha falls. It was a great day! 30 really feels no different than 29 or what I imagine 31 will feel like. Life keeps moving along.















7. Starting Internship

With Nancy at FLC. Credit Susanna for picture

 In August I started my vicar year at First Lutheran Church in St Peter, MN.  I preach, teach, do pastoral visits, and all sorts of other assorted and sundry things.  It is not without challenges, but it is also enjoyable.  It has been an adjustment to live in a small town, but I am getting there. I love the people in this congregation fiercely.  They know what it means to love God and love each other.  They have embraced me and welcomed me into their community. I am learning a lot about myself and my identity as a minister.  

So far my favorite experience…the Christmas Program.  So many wonderful things.









8.  Joining The Pulse: 

Credit The Pulse, Dec 2013

As soon as I moved to St Peter, I knew I would need to have an outlet for stress relief and friendships that was not related to work.  I joined The Pulse, a community gym. This community has been a lifeline for me this year.  For friendships, for exercise, for pushing myself to achieve my fitness goals.  It might seem like an extravagance or even a stupid thing that this made it onto my 2013 year review, but this has been one of my greatest joys this year. 






Looking forward to 2014!

Here are the things brewing for this year:
-Finishing coursework for my Mdiv
-Graduating in June with my Mdiv
-Heading off to do…something...next fall.  No clue as to what this will be.
-Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis
-several different vacations planned (this week…San Francisco!)

Holding the stories

A. Hanson 2012

One of my absolute favorite parts of my ministry is to visit with people and hear their stories. Sometimes this is a formal setting, often times it is in passing.  Nothing brings me greater joy than sitting with someone and hearing what makes them happy, what makes them sad, and what challenges them.  It is for this reason that I almost always accept invitations for lunch, dinner, or coffee with parishioners and the reason that I have weekly office hours at the local coffee shop.  These stories give a richness to ministry that cannot be found by just leading worship or attending committee meetings.

The town where I live, St Peter, Minnesota, experienced a devastating tornado in 1998.  This natural disaster has formed the landscape of the town, the community of people, and the way that this town approaches life together.  Today I had the opportunity to have lunch with a couple parishioners who told me stories of that day and its immediate aftermath.  My congregation's building was untouched by the tornado, and it was the only church building in town that did not sustain some sort of damage. As a result, the church parking lot was used as the nerve center for relief efforts and the building itself was used as a meeting space for all sorts of community groups.  The Catholic church was destroyed in the tornado, and it was on Maundy Thursday in 1998, just about a week and a half after the tornado, that First Lutheran, along with St Peter Catholic church, hosted an ecumenical service. My parishioners talked about how touching it was to be in worship, celebrating Holy Communion, with all sorts of Christians from the town and this story moved me to tears.  This partnership of two congregations under one roof would continue for two years and is still talked about as a shining example of what churches can do when they set aside their differences.

On New Year's Eve I had the opportunity to hang out with my retired neighbors that live across the street.  They invited me over, saying, "it would be just like you get to hang out with your grandparents!" and I was happy to accept because they have a fireplace and the weather has been brutally cold lately.  I heard stories of childhoods spent speaking Swedish in the impoverished scandinavian Seward neighborhood in Minneapolis.

St Peter is also home to one of the state's behavioral health hospital, as well as the state security hospital (like a prison, except for people who are too ill to be in prison) and many of our members have worked there in various capacities.  It is so interesting to hear how the hospital has changed over the years.  I visited one homebound member who worked in carpentry for the hospital and how he took such pride in his work and how he trained and worked alongside many patients and just how important it was to treat everyone with respect and honor their gifts, even patients confined to a mental institution.

And this is only a small sample of what I have been privileged to hear this year. What an incredible gift it is to hold bits and pieces of these stories.

What kind of king is this? A sermon on Luke 23:33-43

Grace, peace and mercy are yours, from the Triune God.  Amen.

As I prepare sermons, I often find that bits and pieces of music stay with me.  A scripture text will often remind me of a song, and that music becomes the accompaniment for my writing.  As I prepared to write this sermon for Christ the King Sunday, I was accompanied by the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.  Some of the words of this magnificent piece are, “King of Kings, forever and ever” and “he shall reign forever and ever” and perhaps most profoundly, “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.”  But the majesty and beauty conveyed in this stunning composition seems downright bizarre when compared to what we hear from Luke’s Gospel today.

This Gospel text seems more suited to something we would hear on Good Friday.  It seems to belong more with the scripture texts of Holy Week than on the last Sunday of the church year, this day that we call Christ the King Sunday.  To call Jesus a king when we hear a text like this seems more like a brutal farce than it does a confession of truth.  The Jesus described in today’s Gospel text is not the sort of king that we would choose, given the opportunity.

Our idea of a king is triumphant.  Someone who demands respect from those around him. Someone who is not going to be humiliated.  Someone who hates all the same people that we do and someone that we can call upon to do battle against all the things that we find to be cruel and unjust.  This King would not keep company with undesirable people and would silence those who would stand against us, using power and might.  We come from a culture without a history of royalty, but we make other things into our kings.  We make political parties the ultimate mediators of what is right or wrong, good or bad.  We place general principles and ideals above individual people and situations.  We see money and property and possessions as the ultimate security in this life.  A king is anything in which we might put our trust to protect and defend us.

In this way, we are really no different from the crowd surrounding the cross. This crowd, probably composed of curious onlookers, along with some of Jesus’ faithful followers, and other Jewish folks, had lived with a story their entire lives of a Messiah who would come to earth to save them.  This Messiah would be regal and wise, like King David, and would be strong enough to defeat their enemies.  This Messiah would avenge generations of injustice.   This Messiah would protect and defend.

With all this in mind, today’s Gospel text from Luke is terribly painful to hear.  It sounds like a story of brutal defeat. Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, hangs on a cross, among convicted criminals.  Not only has he failed to save the people, he cannot even save himself. He is mocked and tormented by Roman soldiers. Jesus speaks only twice and in ways that seem shockingly absurd given what is happening to him.  He says of those crucifying him, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” and the last words spoken before his death are uttered to a criminal executed on the cross next to him, “Truly I tell you, you will be with me in paradise.”  While the soldiers and the crowd mockingly call Jesus a King and taunt him with calls to “save yourself!”, the only person who actually sees Jesus for who he is a criminal sentenced to death.  We do not hear the crimes for which these two men are convicted, but we do hear that they have been justly sentenced.   This scene at the time of Jesus’ death is a reflection of his entire ministry.

Throughout his life, Jesus kept company with people who live on the margins of  “nice” society.  And in his death, he is not surrounded by family and friends at a quiet bedside, but rather criminals as he hangs on a cross, above a jeering crowd. And it is to these marginalized folks, people with nowhere else to go and no one to turn to, that Christ is everything.  That he is truly the King.  The criminal on the cross next to Jesus had nothing to lose by asking Jesus to see him and forgive him.  And Jesus sees him and hears him, and invites him into heaven.  This is profoundly hopeful for me…for all of us…and this is the essence of what it means to call Christ a King. 

In the midst of a situation that seems desperate, at a place called “the skull”, in the middle of death by crucifixion, Jesus is still extending words of overwhelming grace. To those who torment him, and those who suffer alongside him.  Literally with his dying breath he is saying, “You will never be separated from the love of God.”  No matter what you have done, or failed to do, you will still be with me in paradise.  THIS is the kind of King that we need.  This king protects and defends us from all the things of this world that would separate us from God. God in Christ is continually noticing, forgiving, and making new all sorts of hopeless situations, people, and places.

Christ knows suffering.  Christ knows what it means to be in unimaginable, excruciating pain.  He knows death. To me this is infinitely more hopeful than any king that would defend or protect with brute force, wealth, or political power.  Because of who Christ is and what Christ does, we are never separated from God. For all of us who feel like we are put on trial and convicted over and over again for not being good enough, wealthy enough, successful enough, Christ says, “You will never be separated from the love of God.”  For all of us who struggle with the painful realities of addiction, depression, and broken relationships, Christ says, “You will never be separated from the love of God. For I have endured suffering and death and triumphed over all these things for your sake. “  He shall reign forever and ever. 

I have been thinking a lot about why we have this text at the end of the liturgical year. We start each church year on the first Sunday of Advent, with texts that tell of the coming of the Messiah.  We move into the season of Christmas and tell the story of the birth of Christ, and then comes Epiphany.  We move into Lent.  We hear the story of the last week of Jesus’ life and his triumph over death during Holy Week.  Pentecost is the celebration of the giving of the Holy Spirit to all the people of the world.  Then, in the time after Pentecost we tell the stories of the life of Jesus.  This final Sunday of the liturgical year is a statement about the person of Jesus Christ and God’s ongoing work in the world.  The kingdom of God is now, not some far away time or place, and Christ shall reign forever and ever.  Hallelujah.  Hallelujah.  Hallelujah.

A week in the life of an intern pastor

I am sometimes amazed at the sheer variety of what goes into this job.  So here is a week in the life…

Monday: Weekly morning prayer and adult bible study on the Prophetic Literature.  Spent time preparing devotions for wednesday's staff meeting and evening Vespers. Afternoon was spent doing exegesis for my sermon while working at home.

Tuesday: Morning was a 45 minute drive each way to the Minnesota Valley Conference in Glencoe, MN.  This was a meeting with other ELCA pastors and Synod staff.  Afternoon was spent doing exegesis for my sermon while working at home.  Received a call that there had been a death and I needed to contact the funeral home to arrange a time to meet with the family.  A short dinner break, then back to Church for a council meeting.

Wednesday: Morning was a 1.5 hour staff meeting in which I led a discussion of what had been talked about the night before in the council meeting.  Some time spent finalizing confirmation lesson including making a burning bush prop.  Lunch in my car while heading to the funeral home. Nearly two hours spent at the funeral home. Back to the office to communicate all the necessary information to all the right people about the funeral.  Start looking for a song sheet for a hymn not in our worship book. Brief dinner break.  Evening Vespers, then teaching confirmation to 7th and 8th graders.

Thursday: Morning office hours at the local coffee shop.  Have conversations with a few parishioners there.  Bring communion to some members living in a nursing home.  Call a parishioner to pray over the phone in preparation for surgery she is having in a week. Still working on funeral stuff. Now attempting to find a sign language interpreter for this particular funeral.  Clean up and put away stuff from confirmation the night before. Afternoon text study.

Friday: Much needed sabbath because I am exhausted and woke up not feeling great.

Saturday: Time to start writing the sermon. Frustrating process.  Take a nap.  Work some more.  Clean my kitchen.  Take a walk in the frigid sunset cold to clear my head.  Finish sermon about 8:30pm.

Sunday: At church by 7:15am.  First service at 8:15am.  Second worship service at 10:30am.  Home by 12:00pm.  Blessed Sunday afternoon nap time.

And it starts all over again tomorrow morning...

Reformation...it's not just something that happened 500 years ago

Grace, peace and mercy are yours from the Triune God.  Amen

Brothers and Sisters, as you know, today we celebrate Reformation Sunday.  This Sunday is set aside to mark the occasion of October 31st, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg Church.  Luther’s theology was (and continues to be) radical stuff. To think that you were saved by the grace of God, as a free gift, rather than doing anything to merit your own salvation...well...that’s hard to wrap your brain around. It’s freedom, but it’s the kind of freedom so real and so raw that it hurts.  Because we do not know how much we need it until we have exhausted all other options.

In today’s Gospel we have Jesus speaking to a group of his followers.    Our text picks up just after Jesus has foretold his own death.  Jesus proclaims that those who “continue in his word” will be free, but those listening miss the point that he is trying to make.  They feel like they are completely free and completely capable of handling things for themselves.  They say, “we have never been slaves to anyone” and seem pretty self-assured that they have this whole salvation thing figured out. They just have to avoid sinning.  Easy enough, right? 

 How easy it is for us to fall into the same trap. We want to think of ourselves as fundamentally good people.  We want to think of ourselves as the sort of people that KNOW we are justified by faith as a gift from God, but deep down, hope that the fact that we are nice and helpful to our neighbors might earn us a few extra points. We decidedly do not appreciate the fact that mean people, or on a different level, those who commit heinous crimes, might get that same freedom in Christ. Because after all, they don’t deserve it! The sin of the drunk driver or thief or person who commits adultery is so visible, that we invite ourselves to judge them.  We would certainly never do such a thing. Our sins are of a different caliber. As long as we manage to avoid the REALLY BAD sins, we like to think that we will be okay.

We heard in the second reading from Romans, “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed...the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.  For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Sin...it’s not actually the bad things that we do to one another.  It is a separation from God, it is a state of being.  It is our human nature and compulsive self-reliance telling us that we ought to try harder next time.  We should have known better.  If we would just follow the right path, then we will be okay.   

All of these “ought’s” and “should’s” and contingencies convict us over and over again.  We feel like it is completely possible to save ourselves, until we try and discover that we can’t. We have been enslaved by the things of this world.  With regards to sin, we are anything but free.  Left to our own devices, we are bound to keep doing the same things over and over again and not getting any closer to salvation.  We need a God who comes to us in the midst of all of this earthly mess to free us from the bondage that we live in.  The Gospel reading today talks about freedom.  We as Americans tend to equate freedom with the ability to do whatever we want all of the time.  Freedom of expression.  Freedom of the press.  Freedom of religion.  Freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And often, nothing makes us happier than being in charge of our own destiny.   

But this isn’t the sort of freedom that Jesus Christ brings. Through Christ, we are freed from having to justify ourselves, but this comes at the cost of the death of the old self.  We are given salvation as pure gift through faith and the overwhelming grace of a God who wants nothing more than to love us into wholeness.  We will experience this firsthand today in just a few moments when we celebrate the baptism of baby Eleanora.

John’s Gospel is unique in that from the very beginning, it is made clear that Jesus is the Son of God.  God is in the world doing a new thing, God became flesh and lived among us so that we might never have to be separates from God again.  Jesus goes on to say that “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin, and slaves have no freedom, but the son of the father is free forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” 

So where does that leave us? 

Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “they are NOW justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  Now is an important word here, it signifies that something radical and new has taken place. God is a reformer. What if the Reformation is not the celebration of the historical event that gave birth to Protestantism, but rather a celebration of the reforming nature of God?                       

When we treat the Reformation as merely a historical event that was set into motion by Martin Luther, not only do we make it yet again about our own abilities as human beings, but we neglect to see how God is continually active as a Reformer in our world.  We are constantly being formed and re-formed into a new creation by the actions of a loving God. The Reformation is not just something that happened 500 years ago and it’s not merely a chance to drag out the red paraments and sing “A Mighty Fortress”, it is a confession of the very nature of God and what it means to be people of faith.  So I leave you with a story and a of couple questions to ponder. 

            A week ago Saturday I returned from five days in Chicago as part of an urban immersion for people who are interested in becoming mission developers, or people who start new churches.  Our group was hosted by a Lutheran Church called Shekinah Chapel in the deeply impoverished suburb of Riverdale, which has a population of 12,000 people, about the same as St Peter.  Shekinah Chapel is the new congregation that started after a very old Lutheran Church, Our Savior’s, closed its doors in the neighborhood.  Shekinah is doing incredible things to organize their neighborhood for real change.  They have after school programs for at-risk youth, they lobby officials to pass laws to protect the safety of their people from the rampant gun violence in Chicago, Riverdale is home to the gun shop that sells 40% of the guns recovered in violent crimes in Chicago, and they provide a Lutheran church home to a whole bunch of people who wouldn’t normally find themselves in a church at all, let alone a Lutheran one. Shekinah let me be a part of their community for a short time, and I came away changed. Their worship does not look like ours, and the people who make up their community do not look like us, but we are part of the incredible body of Christ together.  God’s work, our hands. This is an example of God always making things new in our church and in our world. Change is scary, reformation is not without anxiety, but there is something really beautiful on the other side. A new creation.  That is the promise of the Gospel and the promise of the Reformation.

So….Your homework for this week is to consider a couple questions:

First, where are you being reformed by God?  

Second, where are we being reformed as a congregation and as the ELCA?

Internship

I am embarking on a yearlong internship beginning on August 13, 2013.  I will spend an entire year with the good people of First Lutheran Church in St Peter, MN as I learn the ins and outs of being a pastor from my excellent supervisor and the church community.  This past friday I made an initial trip down to see my new home and to meet some of the members of my internship committee.  Below I have posted a few pictures of the house itself.  So far I have had the opportunity to meet six of the ten members of my internship committee, and I think it is going to be a fantastic year!

  I will write many more posts in the year to come, but right now, check out this amazing housing!

Front of house

Backyard

living room

sunroom/the place where I will write all my sermons!

kitchen/laundry room

dining room

bedroom